Death of a Tyrant

by Christopher Nicole

  “And you believe that?”

  “Of course I don’t, Elaine. But the fact is that Mom has disappeared without trace and has been gone over six months now. We just have to face facts.”

  “You think she’s dead.”

  Alex hunched his shoulders. “Yes, dearest. I don’t want to, but there comes a time when you have to face facts. She’s dead, and we shall probably never find out where she’s buried.”

  The baby began to cry, as Elaine’s muscles tensed. A nurse hurried in, and she willingly handed over the child. She had never less wanted to be inhibited by the responsibilities of motherhood. “Okay, so the FBI have closed the case. What about the State Department?”

  “I told you,” Alex said patiently. “They’ve checked with the Soviets, and been given a full account of Gregory’s background. It’s all there, the Pripet, war hero…then a job as a schoolmaster or something…”

  Elaine snorted. “What was he supposed to teach? The art of blowing up trains?”

  “I don’t know. But the fact is, there is no reason for the State Department to take it any further, even supposing they could. Anyway, they don’t want to create any additional tensions with this Berlin thing coming to the boil.”

  “Are we going to go to war over that?”

  “Of course we aren’t. But we aren’t going to abandon Berlin either. We’re going to keep it supplied by air.”

  “And when the Russians shoot down our aircraft?”

  “That’ll be another matter. But the State Department doesn’t think it’ll come to that. They reckon it’s all a big bluff. But you’ll see they don’t want any additional crises cropping up.”

  Elaine refrained from telling him that this particular crisis had actually cropped up long before the Russians had cut off access to Berlin, and the State Department had refused to create a fuss about it then. Except make those absurd allusions — she had never told Alexei about that, as she had not wanted to excite him while he had been in a critical condition. “What does Joe say?”

  “Oh, you know Joe,” Alex said. “He lives in the past, recalling all the great deeds he, and Mother, accomplished.”

  “So he still believes she’s alive.”

  “Elaine, Joe, bless his dear heart, sometimes still believes the Tsar is ruling in Russia.”

  *

  As soon as she was settled in at home, Elaine took Alexandra along to visit Joseph, who was still in hospital, although well enough to sit in the grounds in his wheelchair on good days. “The last of the Bolugayevskas,” Joseph said. “At least, in the direct line. Priscilla will love her.”

  Elaine sat on the bench beside him, pushed the pram to and fro. “You know she’s alive, don’t you, Joe.”

  “Well, of course she’s alive, Elaine. People like Priscilla don’t die before their time. And hers isn’t yet, by a long shot.”

  Elaine studied the lined, wrinkled face. Joseph looked a lot older than his age. He always had, because of the life he had led, especially those twelve years in Stalin’s prisons, but he had aged even more since his narrow escape from death — and the disappearance of the woman he loved more than life itself. “Then where do you think she is?”

  A shadow passed across his face. “Stalin has her.” Then he smiled. “But I am going to get her back. The moment I get out of this chair.”

  Elaine bit her lip. And then forced a smile. “Would you like to tell me how you intend to do that? I want to help. So does Alex, even if he won’t admit it.”

  “Well, the first thing to do is find out where she is being held.”

  “How? How do we do that?”

  “We collect every scrap of evidence we can. Everything we know or can find out, and we make every logical deduction possible. As for instance, Stalin held Priscilla prisoner once before, during the War. He held her a prisoner in the Kremlin. And then just let her go.”

  “Was she ill-treated?”

  “No, she wasn’t. It was a sexual matter.”

  “You can just say that?”

  Joseph shrugged. “Your mother-in-law has been through many worse sexual experiences than that. As it happened, Stalin was impotent. Even with Priscilla.”

  “And you both got out. Wouldn’t that have had some propaganda value?”

  “Perhaps. But we had mutually agreed to, how shall I put it, call a truce between the Bolugayevskis and the Bolsheviks. We didn’t want them coming after us as they went after Trotsky. So that was how it was left, and we kept our part of the bargain. Then suddenly, several years later, Stalin up and snatches her again.”

  “Maybe he regained his potency. I’m sorry, Joe, I didn’t mean to be flippant. But there has to be a reason.”

  “Of course. And I’ll tell you what it is. A man called Andrew Morgan.”

  “I’m not with you.”

  “Let me tell you about it,” Joseph said, and did so.

  “How come you never told us about that before?” Elaine asked.

  “It didn’t seem all that important, at the time. To Priscilla, of course, it was just too exciting for words.”

  “I still don’t see what connection a romantic Welshman setting off to find his father’s grave can have with Mom being kidnapped.”

  “The connection is obvious, Elaine. That fellow wasn’t looking for his father’s grave at all. He was a British spy, using your mother’s well-known desire to be involved to get himself not only into Russia, but into the heart of the Kremlin. Priscilla gave him a letter of introduction to my sister, who’s a bosom buddy of Stalin’s.”

  “I met your sister during the War,” Elaine said, thoughtfully. “She seemed a very nice person.”

  “She is. But she’s also a dyed-in-the-wool Red. Some people are,” he added, ingenuously.

  “And you think the Reds found out that Mom helped this Morgan get into Russia?”

  “Well, as she wrote to Jennie, they would certainly have known about it.”

  “And then, when they learned Morgan was a spy…but that means he must have been arrested.”

  “Not necessarily. The Russians are very good at fishing, playing their catch until they’re ready to scoop him up. Or her.”

  “So they snatched Mom. But why? So she gave a British spy an entrée. That doesn’t mean she’s a spy herself.”

  “You don’t understand how the Russian mind works,” Joseph explained. “They’re paranoid. And additionally, they still regard Priscilla as one of theirs. She may have been born over here, but she’s a Bolugayevska by descent, by marriage, and by inclination.”

  “You mean she’s been in their hands for eight months now, being treated as a spy? My God! She could’ve been shot.”

  “Priscilla is alive,” Joseph said, fiercely. “I know it. And as soon as I get out of this goddamed chair I am going to go find her.” The baby began to cry.

  *

  “As I said, much as I love the dear old soul,” Alex said, “you have to admit that sometimes he’s half round the bend. Can’t blame him, really. Quite apart from being crippled for life…”

  “He refuses to admit that.”

  “You read the report from his doctors. So he doesn’t accept it. Just as he doesn’t accept that Mom is dead.”

  “Listen,” Elaine said. “If the State Department won’t help, we could at least see if we can turn up something. We could write your aunt. Or Tatiana. For God’s sake, we fought with her in the War. And she had something going for you, remember?”

  “That’s something I’d rather forget,” Alex said.

  “It happened, Alex. And now we need her help. If you won’t do it, then I will. There’s the man Morgan, too. I think we should get in touch with him.”

  “Just how to do you propose to do that?”

  “Well…advertise. He asked for Mom’s help, once. Surely we’re now entitled to ask for his?”

  Alex looked sceptical. The trouble with Alex, Elaine reckoned, was although he was a super guy, a marvellous lover and a tremendous man of actio
n when pointed in the right direction and told to go for it, he was also a Russian, and that meant he was a fatalist. That led him to accept that his mother, who had courted death and disaster on so many occasions, had finally met with the end many would have said she so richly deserved. Elaine was an American, and couldn’t accept that point of view. She also had much in mind, and on her conscience, that she had really brought about this entire situation. If she had just said to Gregory when he had appeared at her house, “Nice to see you again, to see you nice. Now goodbye,” this situation would never have arisen. Or would it? If everything she had read, and indeed knew, about the Russians was correct, once they set out to get somebody they generally did just that.

  What a time to be a mother, unable to move a muscle while she had Baby Alexandra to care for. But if she couldn’t go to Moscow, she could still write letters.

  *

  Lawrence had never seen Halstead so agitated. He entered the office with his hat still on his head, took it off, and threw it onto an adjacent chair. He was not wearing a buttonhole. And he had shaved off his moustache, some time ago, Lawrence reckoned. “Welcome back,” he murmured.

  Halstead placed a file on the desk. “It’s all there. Russia will test an A-Bomb within a matter of weeks. I’m afraid my mission was not a success.”

  “On the contrary,” Lawrence murmured, opening the file but doing no more than glance at the first page. “We knew it was going to happen. And as nearly all their worthwhile information came out of the States, our hands are entirely clean.”

  “It’s very nice of you to say so,” Halstead said. “I don’t like failing. I also don’t like losing good operatives with no end result.”

  “Quite,” Lawrence said, sympathetically. “How many did you lose?”

  “Just the three. But Crabtree was one of the very best. He went under the name of Smith. Not very original, but the Russians don’t really go for originality. The Kuslovs were a sad case. They only wanted a little extra money.”

  “You say only three.” Lawrence picked up a note from his desk. “What about Morgan?”

  “Morgan was an innocent bystander,” Halstead said. “How he got involved, I have no idea. I think the Russians realised that, too. They didn’t execute him, but packed him off to a gulag.”

  “Have you any idea which one?”

  “Yes. Number Seventeen. Not a nice place. But then, none of them are.”

  “And you say he was an innocent bystander. Then what of the Princess Bolugayevska?”

  “Now, that I cannot say. My information is that there was, is, some kind of personal vendetta between the Princess and the Kremlin.”

  “Is?”

  “She too has not been executed, to my knowledge. But she’s in Gulag Number One. Now that is serious business. No one has ever come out of Gulag Number One. Someone must dislike her very much.”

  “I am not going to ask the source of all your information, James,” Lawrence said. “That is your business. However, have you never had the slightest suggestion that Morgan was not an innocent bystander?”

  Halstead’s frown was back. “No. Why?”

  “You are aware that he and the Princess Bolugayevska were in cahoots?”

  “In what way?”

  “She sent him to Russia.”

  “You know this?”

  Lawrence had a file of his own. This he now handed across the desk. “These letters and advertisements have been appearing in English newspapers for the past year.”

  Halstead studied them with his usual care. “This young woman being?”

  “The Princess’s daughter-in-law.”

  “Who wants to find out what has happened to her mother-in-law. With respect, Mr Lawrence, I don’t find anything sinister in that. Okay, so they do tie Morgan to the Princess, but I don’t see what it has to do with us.”

  “You are obviously not aware that the Princess Bolugayevska’s sister-in-law, an Englishwoman named Jennifer Ligachevna, is a rabid Bolshevik, who lives in Moscow, and is a member of the Kremlin’s inner set. That includes Uncle Joe himself.”

  “Tangled,” Halstead admitted.

  “More than you think. The Princess did not go to Russia of her own free will. She was, as our American cousins would have it, snatched from her home in Boston. The matter was hushed up, because no one wanted a crisis at that time. Well, we’ve had a few crises since, with that Berlin impasse. That’s behind us now. Now there are other things afoot. As for example, one of the reasons the Americans, and ourselves, are not too bothered about the Russians having an A-Bomb is that we are working on something much bigger and more destructive. This one is based on the hydrogen atom, and as I say, makes the Atom Bomb look like a hand grenade. That’ll leave them with some more catching up to do. Obviously we would all like to know just how much.”

  “So it’s back to square one.” Halstead sighed.

  “I have no right to ask you to go back on such a dangerous mission…” Lawrence hesitated.

  “It goes with the job,” Halstead said. “And I have become quite fond of my number one over there, even if she is a thug.”

  “She?” It was Lawrence’s turn to raise an eyebrow.

  “One takes them where one finds them,” Halstead pointed out. “However, I still don’t see where this Bolshevik princess comes into it.”

  “I will have it explained to you. I just wanted to put you in the picture.” He pressed his intercom. “Show Mr Eldridge in, will you, Polly. Eldridge, by the way, has no idea what you really do, Halstead. Nor should he.”

  Jonathan Eldridge was a tall, thin man with a hatchet face. He had State Department written all over him before he opened his mouth. When he did, he spoke with a slow drawl.

  “This is Mr Halstead,” Lawrence introduced. “He works for our Russian department, and has some sources of information over there. We feel he may be able to help you. Us.”

  Eldridge shook hands. “Pleased to meet you, Halstead.” He looked at Lawrence.

  “Oh, please sit down,” Lawrence said. “And just to put your mind at rest, Halstead has Class A clearance. I’ve put him into the general picture.”

  “What we would like, Halstead,” Eldridge said, “is to discover where Mrs Bolugayevska-Cromb is being held.”

  “And?”

  “You can leave the rest to us.”

  “I can tell you now where she is being held, Mr Eldridge. But if you are thinking of either getting at her or getting her out, I would forget it. She’s in a top security prison, situated in a Kazakhstan desert.”

  “Right. Would you take offence if I asked you to verify that information?”

  “I think I am entitled to ask why, as it could be risky.”

  “Well, as you have Class A clearance, I guess I’ll tell you,” Eldridge said. “I need to fill you in on this so-called Princess Bolugayevska. She was born in the States, to American parents, but her mother was half-Russian, and that half was Bolugayevska. This Priscilla ups and marries her cousin, Alexei Bolugayevski, the then Prince of Bolugayen, a guy twenty-nine years older than her, and thus becomes Princess of Bolugayen. Then comes the Revolution, and she has to flee, with her lover, a guy called Joseph Cromb, who, would you believe it, is also a cousin. This dame sure believes in keeping her favours close to home. Now these people are aristocrats. People hated by the Reds, so they say. But it is a fact that Joseph Cromb’s mother, who was a Countess Bolugayevska, was a Red herself, and the family remained very involved with what was happening in Russia. Joseph Cromb’s sister married a Red agent, a hired killer for Lenin and Stalin. Joseph Cromb himself disappeared into Russia for several years in the twenties and thirties…”

  “I’ve read some of his articles,” Halstead remarked. “But he was imprisoned by the Reds and treated quite savagely.”

  “That’s what he says, Halstead. The fact is that he got out. Not too many people do that, unless the Reds want them to.”

  “And the articles?”

  “So who paid any a
ttention to a few articles? Except the State Department, who assumed they were genuine. Because they wanted to, at that time. And in that time, guess who also returns to Russia, and is fêted? The Princess Bolugayevska. You think the Reds would have sent her to join her boyfriend, if there was anything genuine about the set-up. Then they both returned to Russia during the War. Okay, so Joseph Cromb was sent by the State Department as an assistant to Hopkins. He was the obvious man, fluent Russian speaker, Russian himself by birth, what more could we ask? And his wife goes too. Heck, their kid even fought with the partisans. But again, that was when we wanted to be friends. Things have kind of changed since then. One of our senators, a guy named McCarthy, is investigating the infiltration of the State Department by Reds, and it’s beginning to look like our entire society has been so infiltrated. Now here are a few facts I would like you to consider. Over the last few years we have had some success with rooting out the atomic spies, so they say. The Rosenbergs, Chambers, Hiss…”

  Lawrence raised a finger; he was an exact man. “Hiss was never convicted of betraying atomic secrets. Only perjury.”

  Eldridge shrugged. “Same thing, in my book. Anyway, those are the names everyone knows. They weren’t all, or even a fraction, of the agents involved. Now, you tell me why, as soon as it gets real hot, and as soon as Senator McCarthy starts looking for Reds under the bed, the Princess Bolugayevska ups and flees to Russia.”

  “Our information is that she was kidnapped by the KGB,” Halstead said.

  “Poppycock, if you’ll excuse the expression. The Reds were looking after their own.”

  “They shot and nearly killed both her husband and her son. And one of their own people was also killed.”

  “So there’s a mystery. It’ll all come out in due course. Although we do know that all Russian agents are prepared to sacrifice their own families if required to do so by their bosses. And the fact is, the Princess did a bunk. Now, before all this happened, she sent an agent of hers into Russia. An Englishman named Morgan, Right?”

  “I think Mr Morgan would prefer to be known as a Welshman.”